"The agency costs us a lot and I have no idea what it brings in." I hear a version of that sentence regularly from owners of small and mid-sized businesses. It rarely means the agency is doing poor work. More often it points to a framing problem: vague objectives, indicators that were never agreed, advertising accounts the company does not control, and reporting the owner cannot act on.
What follows moves the discussion back to evidence — the transparency rules that already apply, criteria for assessing your current provider, and the questions worth asking before you end a contract.
The aim is not to find someone to blame. Switching digital marketing agency is an expensive way to solve a problem that may have nothing to do with the agency.
Why the relationship with an agency deteriorates
In most cases I have seen, the disappointment comes from a gap between what was ordered and what was expected. An agency hired to produce a visual identity, social posts and a brochure site delivers exactly that. The owner was hoping for enquiries. Nobody misled anyone; nobody wrote down which commercial result would count as success. Three causes recur.
- Objectives never translated into indicators. "More visibility" cannot be measured. "Fifteen qualified enquiries a month through the website" can.
- Measurement tools missing or not shared. Without conversion tracking — forms, calls, booked appointments — nobody can connect an activity to an outcome.
- A vague contractual relationship. Accounts opened in the agency's name, a commitment period nobody remembers agreeing to, a scope never revisited.
All three can be corrected, with or without a change of provider. Fix the framing first, then judge the work.
What the available data shows, and where it comes from
Survey data on how small firms work with digital providers is scarce, and the most detailed recent source I know of is French: the Baromètre France Num 2025, published by the Direction générale des Entreprises and carried out by Crédoc among 11,021 small and medium-sized businesses surveyed in spring 2025. These are self-reported figures describing the French market, not the British one.
- 37% of those French businesses rely on external providers for their digital projects, down two points year on year.
- 37% say they find it difficult to identify a suitable digital provider — 15 points more than the previous year.
Use of providers is broadly stable while the reported difficulty in finding a suitable one rises sharply. That is not a verdict on agencies; it suggests what is missing is a shared set of selection criteria (source: Baromètre France Num 2025, DGE). Do not read those percentages across to your own market; do take the underlying question seriously.
Clarify your objectives before you judge the work
Awareness and acquisition are two different jobs
A brand awareness brief — identity, social media, press relations — and an acquisition brief — paid search, organic search, landing pages, email — are not steered with the same indicators. Criticising the first for failing to generate leads makes no sense. Settle one question first: what is the priority objective for the next twelve months?
Turn the objective into indicators someone actually reads
Write the indicators down, with the tool that measures them, the person who owns that tool, and how often the numbers are reviewed. If you run paid campaigns, the conversion actions in your Google Ads account need to be defined before the first click is bought, not reconstructed six months later.
| Objective | Main indicator | Measurement tool | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generate enquiries | Qualified forms and calls, cost per enquiry | Google Analytics 4, Google Ads conversion tracking, CRM | Monthly |
| Sell online | Attributed revenue, acquisition cost, return on ad spend | GA4, e-commerce platform, Google Ads | Weekly |
| Local visibility | Calls, direction requests and clicks from the business listing | Google Business Profile, Search Console | Monthly |
| Brand awareness | Branded traffic, searches on the company name, post reach | Search Console, social platform statistics | Quarterly |
Impressions, likes and shares are useful intermediate signals. They become a problem only when they are the only figures put in front of an owner waiting for sales.
The transparency rules that already exist
- Google's third-party policy for Ads. Agencies managing campaigns for clients must meet a transparency baseline: you are entitled to know, as a minimum, the clicks and impressions your ads received and what they cost, and the agency must set up a separate account for each client. Google also advises obtaining a written copy of the agreement setting out the agency's fees (Google Ads third-party policy).
- Local advertising law. Rules on media buying through an intermediary vary by country. France, for example, requires a written mandate and full disclosure of seller discounts under the Sapin Act of 1993 (law no. 93-122). Check what applies where your media is bought.
- Ownership of your digital assets. No law imposes this, but it is a clause worth insisting on: domain name, hosting, GA4 property, Google Ads account, Search Console, Google Business Profile and social accounts registered in your company's name, the agency working through delegated access you can revoke.
Objective criteria for choosing a provider
These can all be checked before signing, and apply to an agency and an independent consultant alike. The trade-offs between the two are set out in our guide to choosing an SEO provider.
- Verifiable references in a sector close to yours, with clients you can contact — not a wall of logos.
- Certifications, and what they really mean. The Google Partner badge requires an optimisation score of at least 70% on the manager account, US$10,000 of managed ad spend over 90 days, and at least half of account strategists certified in Google Ads (Google Partner requirements). A signal of volume and training, not a guarantee of results.
- A measurement method described before the quote. Which conversion events will be tracked, with which tools, and who will own them?
- A billing model you can explain to someone else. Retainer, percentage of media spend, fee per deliverable — each is acceptable if stated plainly and if media budget is separated from fees.
- Commitment period and exit terms. One to three months' notice is common; a long commitment with no exit clause is worth negotiating.
- Knowledge transfer. An agency that teaches you to read your own dashboards reduces your dependence on it. Few volunteer this. Ask.
Reading the relationship: warning signs and good signs
Monitoring is not about policing the agency, but about checking that the conditions for success exist on both sides. The last row is the one most often skipped: no agency can optimise a campaign if the business never says which contacts became customers.
| Area | Warning sign | Good sign |
|---|---|---|
| Account access | You cannot open Google Ads or GA4 yourself | You are the administrator; the agency is a guest |
| Reporting | A monthly report with no cost per enquiry and no attributed revenue | Contracted indicators on page one, with comments on the variances |
| Your own involvement | You never tell the agency which enquiries were any good | You qualify the leads and share the conversion rate |
What this looked like in practice
A construction firm in western France was paying roughly €2,500 a month to a generalist communications agency: brochure site, social posts, printed materials. The work was clean. But the site had no tracked quote form, the pages did not match the trades people searched for locally, and the owner could not see the statistics.
We started with a technical audit, built one page per trade and per service area, ran paid campaigns limited to the radius the firm actually travelled, and trained someone in-house to read conversions in GA4. The monthly budget came down to around €900, and the owner could trace an enquiry back to its source.
I am not quoting a growth rate, because there was no baseline — which is precisely the problem the company started with. This firm did not need to leave its agency. It needed to know what it was buying. Putting reliable measurement in place is usually the first step.
Switch agency, or reset the brief?
Before you serve notice, try a reset meeting built around three questions. What is the priority commercial objective? Which indicators will be presented every month? Who owns the accounts? A serious agency accepts that framing, and many propose it themselves. If yours cannot answer, you have learned something useful at no cost.
If you do move, organise the handover: recover access and source files, export historical data, respect the notice period. A rushed switch loses campaign history and penalises whoever arrives next. The discipline set out in our guide to planning an audit applies to a change of provider too.
Common questions
How do I know whether my agency is doing a good job?
Compare what was contracted with what has been delivered, then check the indicators tied to your objective: enquiries, calls, attributed sales, cost per contact. If none were ever agreed, start with a scoping meeting rather than a judgement.
Am I entitled to access a Google Ads account managed by an agency?
Yes. Google's third-party policy states that you are entitled to know the clicks and impressions your ads received and what they cost, and that the agency must create a separate account for each client. Ask for administrator access in your own name.
Does the Google Partner badge guarantee results?
No. According to Google it reflects a minimum optimisation score of 70%, US$10,000 of managed spend over 90 days and a proportion of certified strategists. Signals of volume and training, not of how the agency will perform on your account.
Should I switch agency or renegotiate the brief?
Try the reset first: priority objective, monthly indicators, account ownership. If the agency refuses that framing or cannot meet it, prepare the transition. Switching before you have defined success tends to reproduce the same problem with a new supplier.
Which accounts should be registered in my company's name?
The domain name, hosting, the Google Analytics 4 property, the Google Ads account, Search Console, the Google Business Profile listing and the social accounts. The agency then works through delegated access you can withdraw without losing data or history.
What should I ask for during a handover?
Administrator rights on every account, editable source files, an export of historical analytics and campaign data, and a list of live tracking tags.